Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity.

TitleBiological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity.
Publication TypeJournal Article
AuthorsBoyce, W. T., and B. J. Ellis
PubMed ID16761546
Grant List1 R01 HD 24718 / HD / NICHD NIH HHS / United States
/ / Intramural NIH HHS / United States

Biological reactivity to psychological stressors comprises a complex, integrated, and highly conserved repertoire of central neural and peripheral neuroendocrine responses designed to prepare the organism for challenge or threat. Developmental experience plays a role, along with heritable, polygenic variation, in calibrating the response dynamics of these systems, with early adversity biasing their combined effects toward a profile of heightened or prolonged reactivity. Conventional views of such high reactivity suggest that it is an atavistic and pathogenic legacy of an evolutionary past in which threats to survival were more prevalent and severe. Recent evidence, however, indicates that (a) stress reactivity is not a unitary process, but rather incorporates counterregulatory circuits serving to modify or temper physiological arousal, and (b) the effects of high reactivity phenotypes on psychiatric and biomedical outcomes are bivalent, rather than univalent, in character, exerting both risk-augmenting and risk-protective effects in a context-dependent manner. These observations suggest that heightened stress reactivity may reflect, not simply exaggerated arousal under challenge, but rather an increased biological sensitivity to context, with potential for negative health effects under conditions of adversity and positive effects under conditions of support and protection. From an evolutionary perspective, the developmental plasticity of the stress response systems, along with their structured, context-dependent effects, suggests that these systems may constitute conditional adaptations: evolved psychobiological mechanisms that monitor specific features of childhood environments as a basis for calibrating the development of stress response systems to adaptively match those environments. Taken together, these theoretical perspectives generate a novel hypothesis: that there is a curvilinear, U-shaped relation between early exposures to adversity and the development of stress-reactive profiles, with high reactivity phenotypes disproportionately emerging within both highly stressful and highly protected early social environments.

Title Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity.
Publication Title Dev Psychopathol
Publication Type Journal Article
Published Year 2005
Authors W.T. Boyce; B.J. Ellis
ISSN Number 0954-5794
PubMed ID 16761546
Grant List
1 R01 HD 24718 HD NICHD NIH HHS United States

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